Richie's last attempt at permanent weightloss
10-03-2020
, 12:38 PM
Friday 10/2 Food Log
Potato Salad 300 cals
Salmon 400 cals
Olive Oil 120 cals
Salad w/Dressing 100 cals
Bud Light, 8 each, 880 cals
French Fries, 2 orders, 1000 cals
Sonoran Hotdog, 2 ea, 1400 cals
Total Calories--4200
Water--1/2 Liter
Exercise--7K steps
Day started well, then I went to the casino
Spent the afternoon and most of the night gambling, drinking and eating. I'm guesstimating the beer and food cals. Needless to say I won't be venturing into a casino again for a while.
Potato Salad 300 cals
Salmon 400 cals
Olive Oil 120 cals
Salad w/Dressing 100 cals
Bud Light, 8 each, 880 cals
French Fries, 2 orders, 1000 cals
Sonoran Hotdog, 2 ea, 1400 cals
Total Calories--4200
Water--1/2 Liter
Exercise--7K steps
Day started well, then I went to the casino
Spent the afternoon and most of the night gambling, drinking and eating. I'm guesstimating the beer and food cals. Needless to say I won't be venturing into a casino again for a while.
10-04-2020
, 06:16 PM
10-08-2020
, 05:45 PM
Quote:
Seems like you're just kind of winging it each day. People who struggle life long with weight tend not to be good at improvising so you're really setting yourself up to fail if you don't have a plan. You need to either meal prep or follow a predetermined script. Otherwise you're just relying on pure willpower, which always eventually falters.
You're also likely under reporting calories. Other than pure oil, almonds are the most calorie dense food on the planet, so it's a little hard to believe you only had 100 cals of them (16 grams).
You're also likely under reporting calories. Other than pure oil, almonds are the most calorie dense food on the planet, so it's a little hard to believe you only had 100 cals of them (16 grams).
I mentioned it a few weeks back, but I added the almonds because I wasn't getting enough fat in my diet. Otherwise I wouldn't eat them, they are quite tasty, and I'm aware that it's easy to overindulge when eating nuts.As for 'winging it', definitely not. I have a plan of eating 1500 cals, +- 100. I've got 30 days of food logs. 21 of those days I was in that calorie range. 5 days I was under 1500, 3 of those were in the 1300 cal range, and 2 were under 1000. Those 2 sub 1000 days were intentional, to help compensate for overeating the previous 2 days. I had 4 days over 1600, 2 of those were slightly over but under maintenance levels. I had 2 bad days--one at 2300 cals (which isn't terrible), and 1 fugly day at 4200. Both of those days can be blamed on excessive alcohol intake. Not an excuse, just facts. I shouldn't have any more bad days until Thanksgiving.
To summarize--28 goods days, 1 even day, and 1 really bad day.
Even with the bad days, I averaged 1572 cals/day for these first 30 days. Perhaps you're concentrating on the 2 bad days and ignoring the big picture.
Posting my weight on a weekly basis is possibly going to present uneven results. I lost 7.8,1.0,3.4, and 0.0 for the 4 weekly weigh-ins. If I would have weighed every two weeks, I would have showed an 8.8lb loss, followed by a 3.4 lb loss. The latter looks better, but I prefer weekly weigh-ins, it's more likely to keep me in line. Either way you slice it, it's still 12.2 lbs lost for the first 4 weeks, and I'm fairly satisfied with the results.As far as exercise goes, I have a plan, and I'm slowly working my way up. I had to cut back on my exercise in the second week because I was getting headaches. Made a few changes to my routine, which I documented in a previous post, and the headaches are gone. I'm up to 4.75 miles in my a.m. walk, and my stationary bike rides are getting longer. I also started lifting a few weights, but nothing to write about or get excited about. Just trying to maintain what muscle I have.
My third week, I didn't get as much exercise in as I would have preferred, but I had yard work to do, plus I had to get on the roof to fix my evaporative cooler, and I also had to replace a pool pump motor. Had to get these tasks done in the mornings while it was still cool. It's October, but we're still hitting 100+ degree temps here in Tucson. It's been a record year for heat--I think we're up to 106 days of 100+ temps. Anyway, when it cools down, I hope to get in a p.m. walk as well as my current a.m. walks.
As far as food prep is concerned, certain foods I cook in bulk and plan meals accordingly. Oatmeal, hard-boiled eggs, chicken breast, rice, green veggies, ground beef, black beans, etc--all these are cooked in bulk for days in advance. But, no, I don't measure out each portion to be exactly the same. Some days I'll eat more meat than others; some days I'll eat more veggies if I'm especially hungry that day. So, I plan--but my plans are flexible. I've cooked every meal I've had for the past 30 days, except for the 4200 cal day.
Calorie counting--my calorie counts are spot on, except, once again, for the 4200 calorie day. The only difficult food to calculate is (bulk) cooked chicken breast. But, I count the total calories for the bulk package and make sure that at the end of the 4-5 days I spend eating chicken, that the calories add up. The individual days may be slightly off, but the totals will add up correctly. For example, I just cooked 5.04 lbs of chicken. At 110 cals/4 ounces, that adds up to 2218 cals. Add 120 cals for Olive oil and estimated 100 for spice rub, total cals is 2438, which I rounded up to 2450. I'll be eating chicken for 4-5 days. You can check my numbers to make sure the chicken adds up to 2450
I use this same process for my other cooked foods. 6 servings of rice equals 900 cals, spread over 2-3 days. As long as I account for the 900 cals, I'm not overly concerned if the 6 portions are a few cals off. I pretty much use the same method for all my cooked bulk foods.
Out of curiosity, besides the almonds, which foods do you think I'm under counting?
Anyway, it's a long-winded post, just wanted to illustrate I do follow a plan.
10-09-2020
, 02:22 AM
Quote:
Actually it was the sub 1k calorie day that made me think you were improvising. I don't think it sets a great precedent to have "payback" days to compensate for poor days, because it implies that if you had a few poor days in a row that you'd have to basically starve yourself for a week. I don't think 220 pound people should be dieting on under 1200 cal a day in general. Just seems bad for compliance / increases chance of burnout.
Days where you go over calories are really just blips in the grand scheme of things, providing they're infrequent. You should hold yourself accountable for mistakes, but it doesn't really do you any good to punish yourself. To get to your "ideal" weight will take many months, and there will be weeks during which you won't lose weight at all, even though you were way under your TDEE. It's just the game.
As for almonds, eat them if you like them. On paper they're one of the worst choices for filling out your diet, but if eating things you like increases compliance then that matters more. I will say that I believe you shouldn't worry about achieving a certain amount of dietary fat intake at your stage. That's for bodybuilding show prep and advanced athletes more than anything. If you're really concerned then add fish oil (which you should be taking anyway). While we're there I'd avoid the milk too, mostly for the same reasons as almonds (low satiety, high fat) in addition to being liquid calories.
Days where you go over calories are really just blips in the grand scheme of things, providing they're infrequent. You should hold yourself accountable for mistakes, but it doesn't really do you any good to punish yourself. To get to your "ideal" weight will take many months, and there will be weeks during which you won't lose weight at all, even though you were way under your TDEE. It's just the game.
As for almonds, eat them if you like them. On paper they're one of the worst choices for filling out your diet, but if eating things you like increases compliance then that matters more. I will say that I believe you shouldn't worry about achieving a certain amount of dietary fat intake at your stage. That's for bodybuilding show prep and advanced athletes more than anything. If you're really concerned then add fish oil (which you should be taking anyway). While we're there I'd avoid the milk too, mostly for the same reasons as almonds (low satiety, high fat) in addition to being liquid calories.
And I didn't consider a low calorie day punishment, just didn't need to eat as much the following day. In fact, if I wanted to split hairs, the second sonoran dog/fries meal was eaten at around 3:00 am the following day. So I could have painted a prettier picture by taking 1400 calories off the 4200 cal day, making it a 2800 day, and adding 1400 to the 800 cal day, resulting in a 2200 cal day. Of course, that would be intellectually dishonest, and I'm not going to fudge my numbers to paint a rosy picture. No smoke and mirrors in this thread. We all know where the H & F magic show resides.
Yes, thanks for mentioning the fish oil. I used to take that a few years back, definitely have to get back on the fish oil supplements.
Milk--I only use milk in my oatmeal. I recently changed to whole milk on a recommendation from Cockboat. I buy pints, and this one was 10 days old, and on the verge of going sour. I was low on calories, so instead of throwing it out, I drank it. Quite tasty, I haven't had whole milk in probably 30 years. But, no, it's not part of my regular diet, and there's a good chance you will never see it again.
As far as fat is concerned, 95% of what I've read on the internet suggests I need a fair amount of good fat in my diet, although the percentages do vary. If you, or anybody else reading this thread, have a reliable source that claims I do not need much fat in my diet by all means send me a link. I'd much rather spend those fat calories elsewhere
Last edited by richie; 10-09-2020 at 02:47 AM.
Reason: grammar errors
10-09-2020
, 02:46 AM
Thursday 10/8 Food Log
Oatmeal 250 cals
Stuffed peppers, 3 ea, 920 cals
Spinach, cooked, 120 cals
Hard-boiled eggs, 2 ea, 140 cals
Grated parmesan cheese 50 cals
Total Calories--1480
Water--2 Liters
Exercise--26K steps (fitbit magic)
Fitbit is not always accurate. The first 11.5K are accurate, I did a 4.75 mile walk early this morning. I also did a lot of additional walking throughout the day. However, I noticed my fitbit was adding steps to my totals while I was washing dishes (flicking my wrist). I also noticed it last week adding steps while riding my exercise bike, so depending upon your arm/wrist motion steps can get skewed. I may start only documenting my steps accrued during my planned walks, where I get a consistent gait/stride that is reliable for counting. Or perhaps I'll just break them down as planned walks and/or miscellaneous steps.
Oatmeal 250 cals
Stuffed peppers, 3 ea, 920 cals
Spinach, cooked, 120 cals
Hard-boiled eggs, 2 ea, 140 cals
Grated parmesan cheese 50 cals
Total Calories--1480
Water--2 Liters
Exercise--26K steps (fitbit magic
)Fitbit is not always accurate. The first 11.5K are accurate, I did a 4.75 mile walk early this morning. I also did a lot of additional walking throughout the day. However, I noticed my fitbit was adding steps to my totals while I was washing dishes (flicking my wrist). I also noticed it last week adding steps while riding my exercise bike, so depending upon your arm/wrist motion steps can get skewed. I may start only documenting my steps accrued during my planned walks, where I get a consistent gait/stride that is reliable for counting. Or perhaps I'll just break them down as planned walks and/or miscellaneous steps.
10-09-2020
, 05:24 PM
47K steps, wow, I'm impressed Yeah, I'm hoping this new fitbit will sync up with my desktop so I can use the app. I've read on the fitbit forum some people cannot get their trackers to sync. If my new one fails to sync up with the app, I'll return it and just use the old one. I usually walk on a paved bike/walk path, and there's posted mileages from point A to B, etc. so I basically know what distance I'm walking anyway.
Yeah, I'm hoping this new fitbit will sync up with my desktop so I can use the app. I've read on the fitbit forum some people cannot get their trackers to sync. If my new one fails to sync up with the app, I'll return it and just use the old one. I usually walk on a paved bike/walk path, and there's posted mileages from point A to B, etc. so I basically know what distance I'm walking anyway.